Speaking of boring, Theme Decks were the best, until they became intro packs and became boring to play with. WOTC does this all the time. They start up a new product line. The product is good at first, and over the years, they get worse and worse, or people are just bored of it, and then they cancel it, rather than just make the same product good again. I actually liked the premium deck series. Duel decks are another product. There's the masters series, but I don't buy those things. They used to experiment with multiplayer formats. It's now Commander, Commander, more Commander, always Commander.
I used to like it when WOTC made block constructed decks with the constraints of only having 2 rares, 12 uncommons, it must have a minimum of 24 lands, and there must be at least over 20 different cards. I'd like to see someone critical of intro packs do any better.
Has it always been "good"? My first deck was an upgraded (read: more 4-ofs) version of the Mirrodin Affinity theme deck, and even then it was the only one that was remotely playable of the set, and it's more because of the mechanic than it is of deck construction. Most of them are Limited decks with more copies in it, which doesn't really translate well into Constructed. The Intro Packs got rares designed for them thrown into the main set, to the detriment of said main set, to help focus the decks, and they still suck.
Premium Deck Series are worse. You'd think something filled to the brim with foiled-out good reprints coalesced into a working deck would be well-loved, but it sputtered out after the first one. The Slivers one is worth up to hundreds of dollars online, while the other two range from $40 to $150 and are just everywhere.
Wizards gambled with the original Commander precons, thinking it's going to be a one-time thing. Nope, it exploded in popularity, so much so that they tried to follow up on it as fast as possible, leading to whatever the hell Commander's Arsenal was supposed to be. However, the sticking point were the next Commander precons, which sold just as well as the original decks, if not better. It kept going, with a small decrease in sales with the C19 precons. These precons are one of the few things they've made that only required minor changes for a maintenance on sales. Heck, their power level has gone up unlike every other precon.
Draft still use the regular gameplay rules of magic though. I played with those 40 card theme decks from old core sets, and I still view it as regular magic.
I liked the sports analogies better; the constantly shifting goalposts made a lot more sense, in a meta sort of way.
Speaking of boring, Theme Decks were the best, until they became intro packs and became boring to play with. WOTC does this all the time. They start up a new product line. The product is good at first, and over the years, they get worse and worse, or people are just bored of it, and then they cancel it, rather than just make the same product good again. I actually liked the premium deck series. Duel decks are another product. There's the masters series, but I don't buy those things. They used to experiment with multiplayer formats. It's now Commander, Commander, more Commander, always Commander.
I used to like it when WOTC made block constructed decks with the constraints of only having 2 rares, 12 uncommons, it must have a minimum of 24 lands, and there must be at least over 20 different cards. I'd like to see someone critical of intro packs do any better.
Has it always been "good"? My first deck was an upgraded (read: more 4-ofs) version of the Mirrodin Affinity theme deck, and even then it was the only one that was remotely playable of the set, and it's more because of the mechanic than it is of deck construction. Most of them are Limited decks with more copies in it, which doesn't really translate well into Constructed. The Intro Packs got rares designed for them thrown into the main set, to the detriment of said main set, to help focus the decks, and they still suck.
Premium Deck Series are worse. You'd think something filled to the brim with foiled-out good reprints coalesced into a working deck would be well-loved, but it sputtered out after the first one. The Slivers one is worth up to hundreds of dollars online, while the other two range from $40 to $150 and are just everywhere.
Wizards gambled with the original Commander precons, thinking it's going to be a one-time thing. Nope, it exploded in popularity, so much so that they tried to follow up on it as fast as possible, leading to whatever the hell Commander's Arsenal was supposed to be. However, the sticking point were the next Commander precons, which sold just as well as the original decks, if not better. It kept going, with a small decrease in sales with the C19 precons. These precons are one of the few things they've made that only required minor changes for a maintenance on sales. Heck, their power level has gone up unlike every other precon.
How many of those sales come from people who actually buy the commander deck, and not buy 100 singles packaged in a box? Don't you think that sales are going to be better anyway if a deck had more "rares" in them?
I liked intro packs because not only did it focus on the 60 card game, they are cheap. Once you make the deck have value or is competitive, the decks will no longer become cheap, and that has happened to some Theme Decks in the past. It's as if they don't want the deck to attract those who already know how to play the game looking for that chase card, or they aren't looking to build a deck for new players that would give them no incentive to either fix or build their own deck.
I've mentioned this when Event Decks were a thing. I said that event decks need to not be set associated because the decks contained cards from different sets and the majority of cards weren't from that particular set. The same is happening with the Commander precons. The Kaldheim Commander precons don't feel like Kaldheim. If there were Kaldheim intro packs, at least one of them would have focused on the snow mechanic, much so that almost the entire deck has snow cards. All the Commander decks had is one or two snow cards in one of the decks.
Less than a quarter of the deck contents have cards that feel like strixhaven. I can take every white black theme deck and intro pack, make a commander deck and slap Silverquill as its name, and the deck would still have nothing to do with strixhaven.
The deck has strixhaven sprinkled on top rather than the deck being made of strixhaven. At least Theme decks, Intro packs, and Planeswalker decks made sense to be set associated because the contents of the deck draw from the set itself.
There is a huge difference in flavor between the Elvish Rage theme deck from Legions and the Elvish Predation theme deck from Lorwyn.
Its shocking how little this thread has to do with the D&D AFR Commander Decks. I'd think there will be too much reprinting from MtG settings in these decks, its harder to justify. The exception being spells like Fireball, Lightening Bolt, Counterspell,ect..., all of which are D&D spells.
All I will suspect is that these decks will have nothing to do with D&D except for a few cards and some D&D branding slapped all over the packaging. If they were your Theme Decks or Intro Packs, each deck will actually be D&D themed as most of the cards will be sourced from the set itself.
All I will suspect is that these decks will have nothing to do with D&D except for a few cards and some D&D branding slapped all over the packaging. If they were your Theme Decks or Intro Packs, each deck will actually be D&D themed as most of the cards will be sourced from the set itself.
Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Conuly »
Heck, every day I wake up, I don't go out and kill people - and I'm rewarded by not having legions of enemies! Amazing how that works.
Although ninjas are experts of camouflage and concealment, they are actually horrible liars. This means that no matter where you are, you can shout out, “Are there any ninjas here?” and if there’s a ninja within earshot, he’ll be compelled to respond.
All I will suspect is that these decks will have nothing to do with D&D except for a few cards and some D&D branding slapped all over the packaging. If they were your Theme Decks or Intro Packs, each deck will actually be D&D themed as most of the cards will be sourced from the set itself.
Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?
I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.
Try to get this back on topic
reprints will probably be made with new art in D&D form
I have lost contact with DnD after 3.5. Back then there was a lot of overlap in the list of artists for DnD books and MtG cards. Is this still true now?
Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?
I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.
There are over 80 new cards in Strixhaven Commander / 2021.
I'd like you to list me the 80 new cards in one Strixhaven Commander deck. Even if that was the case, Strixhaven and Ikoria is your annual commander series. D&D, Kaldheim, and Zendikar Rising is a different story.
I can bet you that a Strixhaven Commander deck does NOT have 80 new cards, and I can safely say those are facts.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you meant across all decks, since 90 in a single deck would be a practical impossibility - even for those other sets. Any person who's ever built a commander deck knows that only ~65 of them are non-land cards, but even if we use your numbers, just 2 decks would be 180 cards out of less than 300 for an entire set. It would be foolish, from a manufacturer perspective, to sell a product that effectively represents half of full playset, and mechanically they would play like the world's most terrible sealed pool. If that's really what you're interested in, you can do the exact same thing by purchasing $15 worth of booster packs. Problem solved!
Interesting fact: on the inside packaging of the new commander decks, there's a marketing blurb for Magic's various formats, among them standard, booster draft, and commander. No mention of 'regular' anything, though.
Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?
I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.
There are over 80 new cards in Strixhaven Commander / 2021.
I'd like you to list me the 80 new cards in one Strixhaven Commander deck. Even if that was the case, Strixhaven and Ikoria is your annual commander series. D&D, Kaldheim, and Zendikar Rising is a different story.
I can bet you that a Strixhaven Commander deck does NOT have 80 new cards, and I can safely say those are facts.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you meant across all decks, since 90 in a single deck would be a practical impossibility - even for those other sets.
Reading comprehension is tech: It's 90 cards on theme or "plane neutral", which would reasonably include any basic land and also nonbasic lands that don't tie themselves to a specific plane (so Shocklands we've recently seen are flexible enough to make s ten-card cycle across ten planes, while Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx probably is not).
I think the less insane-sounding way to word the requirement would be: I allow for ten cards that are off-theme. Debatable as reasonable.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Conuly »
Heck, every day I wake up, I don't go out and kill people - and I'm rewarded by not having legions of enemies! Amazing how that works.
Although ninjas are experts of camouflage and concealment, they are actually horrible liars. This means that no matter where you are, you can shout out, “Are there any ninjas here?” and if there’s a ninja within earshot, he’ll be compelled to respond.
Indeed! A skilled reader can often learn as much from what hasn't been said as they can what has. In this particular case, it would take some very generous assumptions to make a reasonable case out of what was expressly stated. I think I addressed part of that, at least, in the sentences you didn't quote; why would a person so thoroughly preoccupied with theme be worried about the lands in a 100 card deck, unless they were either choosing arbitrary thresholds for what should be in that deck, or had no experience with the format at all? It just doesn't square, and I have my concerns about how much further the goalposts would shift if I asked for an objective measure of how many of those 90 cards could be from "plane neutral" sets, and have the deck still qualify as a novel product. Or what qualifies as plane neutral, for that matter.
A reasonable person might think these Strixhaven decks are oozing with both theme and flavor, and I may or may not happen to be one of them.
Well, it's certainly easier to argue about issues that arise "if I asked" than actually asking. I think it's a particularly ungenerous interpretation to say they are "worried about lands" (as opposed to "taking them into account for total deck size"), but even then... Nykthos!
You make certainly some ungenerous assumptions yourself with regard to the numbers. How good-faith can your argument be, if you are clearly aware of how many lands are going to be in those decks (many of which will be basic lands), yet you state
if we use your numbers, just 2 decks would be 180 cards out of less than 300 for an entire set.
as if those are 180 unique cardnames (because that's what the "less than 300" refers to, right?)? And how can you use a pool of "less than 300" cards (so even ignoring that "plane neutral" could include cards like Fireball if not reprinted in the set) if you also point out ~80 commander-deck-specific cards (81, one of them IIRC appearing in all decks) that were created for the setting beyond the draft booster cards.
You may complain about "generous assumptions", but here is why I make them: If someone's position is indefensible under generous assumptions, it is refuted. If you have to interpret statements in the worst possible way and fudge the numbers, if you weren't even interested enough to know where the goalposts were, then you maybe aren't actually making a good faith effort to understand the position enough to maybe agree with it. Not defining a goal post gives you as much leeway to move them around as the other side.
I happen to think the Strixhaven decks are very thematic and that we should consider them the template the D&D-set decks will likely follow as well. They even replace decks that usually would get their own unique card designs, so that's something I'd expect there as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Conuly »
Heck, every day I wake up, I don't go out and kill people - and I'm rewarded by not having legions of enemies! Amazing how that works.
Although ninjas are experts of camouflage and concealment, they are actually horrible liars. This means that no matter where you are, you can shout out, “Are there any ninjas here?” and if there’s a ninja within earshot, he’ll be compelled to respond.
Well, it's certainly easier to argue about issues that arise "if I asked" than actually asking.
Sure. Why give someone with a penchant for making up arbitrary definitions the opportunity to do more of the same, though? That's just creating unnecessary work for myself in the long run, and doesn't actually add anything to the conversation.
Quote from ZasZ234 »
I think it's a particularly ungenerous interpretation to say they are "worried about lands" (as opposed to "taking them into account for total deck size"), but even then... Nykthos!
I don't. One of the tricks to, erm, reading comprehension is being able to size up a writer's biases. I find it difficult to believe the person has much experience with commander, given their stance on the format and how they've framed their argument. Why, then, should I assume they're not including lands to prove a point when you yourself had to completely twist that same argument on its head to make it sound even remotely plausible? Like I said, it just doesn't square, especially within the broader context of what's actually being asked for here. 90 cards was a poor point of reference if we aren't talking about a single commander deck, and an even poorer one if we are. The fact that I chose to approach it from both angles, across multiple posts, is amply generous so far as I'm concerned.
Quote from ZasZ234 »
You make certainly some ungenerous assumptions yourself with regard to the numbers. How good-faith can your argument be, if you are clearly aware of how many lands are going to be in those decks (many of which will be basic lands), yet you state
if we use your numbers, just 2 decks would be 180 cards out of less than 300 for an entire set.
as if those are 180 unique cardnames (because that's what the "less than 300" refers to, right?)? And how can you use a pool of "less than 300" cards (so even ignoring that "plane neutral" could include cards like Fireball if not reprinted in the set) if you also point out ~80 commander-deck-specific cards (81, one of them IIRC appearing in all decks) that were created for the setting beyond the draft booster cards.
We're not using my numbers, we're using theirs. The point, which I feel you missed, is that the argument doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, either by normal metrics (x/65) or the ones I've been given (90/99). Extending the sample size into multiple decks only makes it worse, not better. If you care to offer up better metrics in defense of someone else's argument, I'm all ears.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure why 90 was used to begin with, since it doesn't serve the original point about theme or intro decks. If they meant 90% instead, they already had an opportunity to clarify.
Quote from ZasZ234 »
You may complain about "generous assumptions", but here is why I make them: If someone's position is indefensible under generous assumptions, it is refuted. If you have to interpret statements in the worst possible way and fudge the numbers, if you weren't even interested enough to know where the goalposts were, then you maybe aren't actually making a good faith effort to understand the position enough to maybe agree with it. Not defining a goal post gives you as much leeway to move them around as the other side.
I sense that maybe we're talking past each other; I'm the one being forced to make generous assumptions here, so that we (zeta and I) can share a debate on the same level as one another. Complaining really doesn't enter into it. Here is why, in good faith, I chose to make such assumptions: if someone's argument is so deliberately nebulous that they can't be pinned down in objective, measurable terms, there is nothing defensible to refute in the first place. It feels as though the alternatives I'm left with are to dismiss the conversation out of hand, or make somebody else's points for them.
My point was that the set associated Commander decks should not be set associated. For a deck to be set associated, it must mostly have cards drawn from the set, is themed after set, or is plane neutral. For a card to be themed from the set or is plane neutral, the name must not reference anything from any other plane, and the art must not feature anything from any other plane. If a deck has basic lands from a different plane, then those lands are not themed from the set or is plane neutral.
I picked 90 out of 100 cards because you are more likely to draw the cards themed from the set than you are not, and I want that likelihood to be very high, and I picked 90 out of 100 to argue that Commander decks should not be set associated.
Commander is an eternal format. I do not see a point in tying it to the newest sets. It would make just as much sense to have the Strixhaven Commander decks be released a decade from now as it is to be released this year. I'd rather have it so that the set associated precons are your 60 card regular (I don't use the term standard because you would assume standard competitive) decks while the Commander decks, which don't have to be tied to a set, and is not branded to be set associated, has a loose theme around a plane we visited before. The way WOTC are doing things now, the Commander decks are guaranteed to have your commander be from the newest sets.
Not only have I lost my precious Theme Decks and Intro Packs, although I do wish that the power levels and complexities of those decks were a bit higher, we will never ever get to see the main Commander in Commander Decks from planes that we have visited before, but won't re-visit in a Standard set.
It's not that I dislike the Commander format. It's more like, in terms of precons this year and possibly going forward, why is almost everything Commander? Commander this, Commander that. During the years where we only got the one Commander release with the 5, sometimes 4, decks, I mentioned that there should be two of these releases per year. I didn't mean it for them to tie the Commander decks to the Standard sets. It used to be that you only got 5 Commander decks per year while every other precon was 60 card. Now the balance of power has switched. We get 4 (9 if there is a Core set that year) 60 card decks while everything else is Commander.
The set associated precons should be nothing more than a sampler of that set. The Commander decks do not serve that purpose. I could also say that the Planeswalker Decks don't do that either. I'll take Kaldheim Commander Decks for example. What are the themes of the two decks? Elves and uh, Foretell? With the Foretell deck, the odds of drawing a Foretell card is low that you don't even get to get a feeling of that mechanic.
If Kaldheim were released in the Theme Deck era, the 4 decks would've been Elves, Foretell, Snow, and some other Tribal theme.
Since this is about the D&D Commander decks, the D&D set would have so many awesome themes that don't get a deck, because there is most likely going to be two choices, and we probably get, aside from basic lands, 20 out of 100 cards be related to that theme, and thus your chances to experience that theme is low.
It's pretty funny how the set that has the main Commander decks tied to it has a "5" theme. You know, in Ikoria, they have the five locales in the plane that is your wedge colors, and now we have your 5 colleges in Strixhaven.
My point was that the set associated Commander decks should not be set associated. For a deck to be set associated, it must mostly have cards drawn from the set, is themed after set, or is plane neutral. For a card to be themed from the set or is plane neutral, the name must not reference anything from any other plane, and the art must not feature anything from any other plane. If a deck has basic lands from a different plane, then those lands are not themed from the set or is plane neutral.
I picked 90 out of 100 cards because you are more likely to draw the cards themed from the set than you are not, and I want that likelihood to be very high, and I picked 90 out of 100 to argue that Commander decks should not be set associated.
I honestly don't judge you for wanting this, but at the same time it's not a very realistic expectation.
Quote from signofzeta »
Commander is an eternal format. I do not see a point in tying it to the newest sets. It would make just as much sense to have the Strixhaven Commander decks be released a decade from now as it is to be released this year. I'd rather have it so that the set associated precons are your 60 card regular (I don't use the term standard because you would assume standard competitive) decks while the Commander decks, which don't have to be tied to a set, and is not branded to be set associated, has a loose theme around a plane we visited before. The way WOTC are doing things now, the Commander decks are guaranteed to have your commander be from the newest sets.
Not only have I lost my precious Theme Decks and Intro Packs, although I do wish that the power levels and complexities of those decks were a bit higher, we will never ever get to see the main Commander in Commander Decks from planes that we have visited before, but won't re-visit in a Standard set.
It would not make sense, from a marketing a point of view, to do that at all. I don't approve of every decision that Wizards makes in the pursuit of profit, but I still want them to stay in business. That said, they will certainly go back to revising characters from previous planes.
Quote from signofzeta »
It's not that I dislike the Commander format. It's more like, in terms of precons this year and possibly going forward, why is almost everything Commander? Commander this, Commander that. During the years where we only got the one Commander release with the 5, sometimes 4, decks, I mentioned that there should be two of these releases per year. I didn't mean it for them to tie the Commander decks to the Standard sets. It used to be that you only got 5 Commander decks per year while every other precon was 60 card. Now the balance of power has switched. We get 4 (9 if there is a Core set that year) 60 card decks while everything else is Commander.
Because it's the year of commander! It only started just last May, with the release of Ikoria. Would you be less upset to know that it should now effectively be over?
My point was that the set associated Commander decks should not be set associated. For a deck to be set associated, it must mostly have cards drawn from the set, is themed after set, or is plane neutral. For a card to be themed from the set or is plane neutral, the name must not reference anything from any other plane, and the art must not feature anything from any other plane. If a deck has basic lands from a different plane, then those lands are not themed from the set or is plane neutral.
I picked 90 out of 100 cards because you are more likely to draw the cards themed from the set than you are not, and I want that likelihood to be very high, and I picked 90 out of 100 to argue that Commander decks should not be set associated.
I honestly don't judge you for wanting this, but at the same time it's not a very realistic expectation.
Quote from signofzeta »
Commander is an eternal format. I do not see a point in tying it to the newest sets. It would make just as much sense to have the Strixhaven Commander decks be released a decade from now as it is to be released this year. I'd rather have it so that the set associated precons are your 60 card regular (I don't use the term standard because you would assume standard competitive) decks while the Commander decks, which don't have to be tied to a set, and is not branded to be set associated, has a loose theme around a plane we visited before. The way WOTC are doing things now, the Commander decks are guaranteed to have your commander be from the newest sets.
Not only have I lost my precious Theme Decks and Intro Packs, although I do wish that the power levels and complexities of those decks were a bit higher, we will never ever get to see the main Commander in Commander Decks from planes that we have visited before, but won't re-visit in a Standard set.
It would not make sense, from a marketing a point of view, to do that at all. I don't approve of every decision that Wizards makes in the pursuit of profit, but I still want them to stay in business. That said, they will certainly go back to revising characters from previous planes.
Quote from signofzeta »
It's not that I dislike the Commander format. It's more like, in terms of precons this year and possibly going forward, why is almost everything Commander? Commander this, Commander that. During the years where we only got the one Commander release with the 5, sometimes 4, decks, I mentioned that there should be two of these releases per year. I didn't mean it for them to tie the Commander decks to the Standard sets. It used to be that you only got 5 Commander decks per year while every other precon was 60 card. Now the balance of power has switched. We get 4 (9 if there is a Core set that year) 60 card decks while everything else is Commander.
Because it's the year of commander! It only started just last May, with the release of Ikoria. Would you be less upset to know that it should now effectively be over?
Year of Commander, more like an eternity of Commander until we screw up the product line so much that nobody buys our product. If Ikoria was the start of "year of commander", then Strixhaven wouldn't have commander decks. Even the upcoming D&D set has commander decks and by that time, it has been past that year.
It is not that difficult to not slap the word Ikoria or Strixhaven into the annual commander deck release.
As for set associated precons must mostly having cards related to the set or is plane neutral, it had nothing to do with me being biased against commander. I mentioned that event decks should not be set associated because they contain a mixture of cards from all standard legal sets. There was one event deck from Innistrad block that had more cards from Scars of Mirrodin block.
All I will suspect is that these decks will have nothing to do with D&D except for a few cards and some D&D branding slapped all over the packaging. If they were your Theme Decks or Intro Packs, each deck will actually be D&D themed as most of the cards will be sourced from the set itself.
Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?
I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.
I seriously don't get how you got 80 cards from the set of 5 decks when Zasz234 was asking for a deck, and a D&D deck, not Strixhaven. D&D commander decks will most likely be built like the Kaldheim and Zendikar Rising commander decks.
Explain to me why is it so important for the Commander decks to be tied to the Standard sets? Too bad we will never see something like Commander 2019 where we had a Morph Commander Deck and Flashback Commander deck. Each of the 4 having the main Commander being from totally different planes. Tell me. Why would it not make sense to have Commander not tied to a Standard set, like it used to be?
Explain to me why is it so important for the Commander decks to be tied to the Standard sets? Too bad we will never see something like Commander 2019 where we had a Morph Commander Deck and Flashback Commander deck. Each of the 4 having the main Commander being from totally different planes. Tell me. Why would it not make sense to have Commander not tied to a Standard set, like it used to be?
...You seem to be looking at the situation from almost exactly the opposite perspective from what I (strongly) suspect Wizards is doing.
Put simply, Wizards is selling set-themed commander decks to build synergy.
While I know that synergy is thrown around so often that the word has just about lost all meaning at this point, I want to make the argument that set-themed commander decks synergize with their sets in two fundamental ways. 1. Commander Deck First: If someone buys a commander deck, they will not find all of the set-themed cards that they may want. In fact, they will notably find that some of the cards from the corresponding set that they would want most (rares and mythics) are missing. This thematic gap in the decklists is put there very much by design. If you get your Ranar deck to foretell some cards, you may want doomskar or starnheim unleashed, which will lead someone who bought a commander deck to purchase booster packs and/or singles as well. 2. Booster Packs First: Let's say that you cracked a Strixhaven booster pack and pull out Tyvar Kell. You may reasonably want to shove Tyver into a G/B elf deck for commander... but there's not a ton of good golgari elves to act as your commander... and getting a selection of older cards (Commander is an eternal format, after all) needed to build your 100-card singleton deck may require an expenditure of effort and money that may not be worthwhile to newer players. If you just buy that Elven Empire commander deck, however, you will have a nice home for that Tyvar Kell or Harald Unites the Elves you just cracked and will have a decent commander for that strategy. In this way, buying the booster packs can encourage players to buy into commander decks. Conclusion: As I said, it's all about synergy. Pulling Kaldheim singles that synergize with the deck encourages buying the deck and buying the deck encourages players to get the new singles that match into that deck. If you want to know why Wizards is tying the Commander decks into standard-legal sets, it's because doing so allows the two products to increase each others' sales. If they printed a Morph Commander deck and don't have any sets with morph coming out at that time, they are passing up on a free opportunity to also be boosting set sales. If you don't like that reason or feel that is unethical, you are free to feel that way. If you want to know why this is happening, though, that's your reason. That's also why they claim to tie the flavor commander decks to the set (even though there are so many cards from other sets/settings) instead of simply releasing decks with purely mechanical ties to the set. Having them both branded with the same set name helps players make the connection that singles from one product might be slotted into the other product, increasing sales of both. No vorthos concerns. Sales concerns.
Other Notes:
1. In one video of Good Morning Magic, I do believe that Gavin reported that the "old fashioned" version of "just choose a mechanical theme" decks may emerge again in the future from time to time.
2. I realize that the Commander Legends Commander Decks were terrible at synergizing with the corresponding set (it's not like we have a lack of boros equipment commanders to make Wyleth necessary). From what I have heard, they were the first of the "mini" commander decks actually designed. The fact that they got it right with their "next" attempts (making a landfall commander in the colors of landfall and a proper rogue tribal commander) shows that the aim for synergy was established quite early.
3. I recognize that the Lorehold deck in particular does not seem to align with its corresponding college in the main set (It's the only commander deck that doesn't want it's founding dragon shoved in). Mark Rosewater recently speculated on blogatog that the change occured as there weren't enough boros cards to explore the new design space that lorehold was going for and they had to go for an artifact theme instead.
People had been complaining for years that the commander deck themes were starting to lose focus, with a fair amount of pessimism that WotC was running out of novel design space. Tying theme to the release of accompanying sets has proven to be both an elegant and organic solution, if not an inevitable one.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
✊🏿 Justice for George Floyd ✊🏿
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Premium Deck Series are worse. You'd think something filled to the brim with foiled-out good reprints coalesced into a working deck would be well-loved, but it sputtered out after the first one. The Slivers one is worth up to hundreds of dollars online, while the other two range from $40 to $150 and are just everywhere.
Wizards gambled with the original Commander precons, thinking it's going to be a one-time thing. Nope, it exploded in popularity, so much so that they tried to follow up on it as fast as possible, leading to whatever the hell Commander's Arsenal was supposed to be. However, the sticking point were the next Commander precons, which sold just as well as the original decks, if not better. It kept going, with a small decrease in sales with the C19 precons. These precons are one of the few things they've made that only required minor changes for a maintenance on sales. Heck, their power level has gone up unlike every other precon.
I liked the sports analogies better; the constantly shifting goalposts made a lot more sense, in a meta sort of way.
Would you like to play Magic on TTS with me?
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
How many of those sales come from people who actually buy the commander deck, and not buy 100 singles packaged in a box? Don't you think that sales are going to be better anyway if a deck had more "rares" in them?
I liked intro packs because not only did it focus on the 60 card game, they are cheap. Once you make the deck have value or is competitive, the decks will no longer become cheap, and that has happened to some Theme Decks in the past. It's as if they don't want the deck to attract those who already know how to play the game looking for that chase card, or they aren't looking to build a deck for new players that would give them no incentive to either fix or build their own deck.
I've mentioned this when Event Decks were a thing. I said that event decks need to not be set associated because the decks contained cards from different sets and the majority of cards weren't from that particular set. The same is happening with the Commander precons. The Kaldheim Commander precons don't feel like Kaldheim. If there were Kaldheim intro packs, at least one of them would have focused on the snow mechanic, much so that almost the entire deck has snow cards. All the Commander decks had is one or two snow cards in one of the decks.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
Less than a quarter of the deck contents have cards that feel like strixhaven. I can take every white black theme deck and intro pack, make a commander deck and slap Silverquill as its name, and the deck would still have nothing to do with strixhaven.
The deck has strixhaven sprinkled on top rather than the deck being made of strixhaven. At least Theme decks, Intro packs, and Planeswalker decks made sense to be set associated because the contents of the deck draw from the set itself.
There is a huge difference in flavor between the Elvish Rage theme deck from Legions and the Elvish Predation theme deck from Lorwyn.
Just curious. What would the criteria/threshold be for a deck to be satisfyingly D&D themed?
Although ninjas are experts of camouflage and concealment, they are actually horrible liars. This means that no matter where you are, you can shout out, “Are there any ninjas here?” and if there’s a ninja within earshot, he’ll be compelled to respond.
I'd say 90 cards being D&D related or any plane neutral cards.
reprints will probably be made with new art in D&D form
There are over 80 new cards in Strixhaven Commander / 2021.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
I have lost contact with DnD after 3.5. Back then there was a lot of overlap in the list of artists for DnD books and MtG cards. Is this still true now?
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
I'd like you to list me the 80 new cards in one Strixhaven Commander deck. Even if that was the case, Strixhaven and Ikoria is your annual commander series. D&D, Kaldheim, and Zendikar Rising is a different story.
I can bet you that a Strixhaven Commander deck does NOT have 80 new cards, and I can safely say those are facts.
Interesting fact: on the inside packaging of the new commander decks, there's a marketing blurb for Magic's various formats, among them standard, booster draft, and commander. No mention of 'regular' anything, though.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/rules-and-formats/formats?redirect-formats=
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
https://scryfall.com/sets/c21?order=set&as=grid
Read the bottom left of any of the new cards 81 new cards
Reading comprehension is tech: It's 90 cards on theme or "plane neutral", which would reasonably include any basic land and also nonbasic lands that don't tie themselves to a specific plane (so Shocklands we've recently seen are flexible enough to make s ten-card cycle across ten planes, while Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx probably is not).
I think the less insane-sounding way to word the requirement would be: I allow for ten cards that are off-theme. Debatable as reasonable.
Although ninjas are experts of camouflage and concealment, they are actually horrible liars. This means that no matter where you are, you can shout out, “Are there any ninjas here?” and if there’s a ninja within earshot, he’ll be compelled to respond.
A reasonable person might think these Strixhaven decks are oozing with both theme and flavor, and I may or may not happen to be one of them.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
You make certainly some ungenerous assumptions yourself with regard to the numbers. How good-faith can your argument be, if you are clearly aware of how many lands are going to be in those decks (many of which will be basic lands), yet you state
as if those are 180 unique cardnames (because that's what the "less than 300" refers to, right?)? And how can you use a pool of "less than 300" cards (so even ignoring that "plane neutral" could include cards like Fireball if not reprinted in the set) if you also point out ~80 commander-deck-specific cards (81, one of them IIRC appearing in all decks) that were created for the setting beyond the draft booster cards.
You may complain about "generous assumptions", but here is why I make them: If someone's position is indefensible under generous assumptions, it is refuted. If you have to interpret statements in the worst possible way and fudge the numbers, if you weren't even interested enough to know where the goalposts were, then you maybe aren't actually making a good faith effort to understand the position enough to maybe agree with it. Not defining a goal post gives you as much leeway to move them around as the other side.
I happen to think the Strixhaven decks are very thematic and that we should consider them the template the D&D-set decks will likely follow as well. They even replace decks that usually would get their own unique card designs, so that's something I'd expect there as well.
Although ninjas are experts of camouflage and concealment, they are actually horrible liars. This means that no matter where you are, you can shout out, “Are there any ninjas here?” and if there’s a ninja within earshot, he’ll be compelled to respond.
Sure. Why give someone with a penchant for making up arbitrary definitions the opportunity to do more of the same, though? That's just creating unnecessary work for myself in the long run, and doesn't actually add anything to the conversation.
I don't. One of the tricks to, erm, reading comprehension is being able to size up a writer's biases. I find it difficult to believe the person has much experience with commander, given their stance on the format and how they've framed their argument. Why, then, should I assume they're not including lands to prove a point when you yourself had to completely twist that same argument on its head to make it sound even remotely plausible? Like I said, it just doesn't square, especially within the broader context of what's actually being asked for here. 90 cards was a poor point of reference if we aren't talking about a single commander deck, and an even poorer one if we are. The fact that I chose to approach it from both angles, across multiple posts, is amply generous so far as I'm concerned.
We're not using my numbers, we're using theirs. The point, which I feel you missed, is that the argument doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, either by normal metrics (x/65) or the ones I've been given (90/99). Extending the sample size into multiple decks only makes it worse, not better. If you care to offer up better metrics in defense of someone else's argument, I'm all ears.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure why 90 was used to begin with, since it doesn't serve the original point about theme or intro decks. If they meant 90% instead, they already had an opportunity to clarify.
I sense that maybe we're talking past each other; I'm the one being forced to make generous assumptions here, so that we (zeta and I) can share a debate on the same level as one another. Complaining really doesn't enter into it. Here is why, in good faith, I chose to make such assumptions: if someone's argument is so deliberately nebulous that they can't be pinned down in objective, measurable terms, there is nothing defensible to refute in the first place. It feels as though the alternatives I'm left with are to dismiss the conversation out of hand, or make somebody else's points for them.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
I picked 90 out of 100 cards because you are more likely to draw the cards themed from the set than you are not, and I want that likelihood to be very high, and I picked 90 out of 100 to argue that Commander decks should not be set associated.
Commander is an eternal format. I do not see a point in tying it to the newest sets. It would make just as much sense to have the Strixhaven Commander decks be released a decade from now as it is to be released this year. I'd rather have it so that the set associated precons are your 60 card regular (I don't use the term standard because you would assume standard competitive) decks while the Commander decks, which don't have to be tied to a set, and is not branded to be set associated, has a loose theme around a plane we visited before. The way WOTC are doing things now, the Commander decks are guaranteed to have your commander be from the newest sets.
Not only have I lost my precious Theme Decks and Intro Packs, although I do wish that the power levels and complexities of those decks were a bit higher, we will never ever get to see the main Commander in Commander Decks from planes that we have visited before, but won't re-visit in a Standard set.
It's not that I dislike the Commander format. It's more like, in terms of precons this year and possibly going forward, why is almost everything Commander? Commander this, Commander that. During the years where we only got the one Commander release with the 5, sometimes 4, decks, I mentioned that there should be two of these releases per year. I didn't mean it for them to tie the Commander decks to the Standard sets. It used to be that you only got 5 Commander decks per year while every other precon was 60 card. Now the balance of power has switched. We get 4 (9 if there is a Core set that year) 60 card decks while everything else is Commander.
The set associated precons should be nothing more than a sampler of that set. The Commander decks do not serve that purpose. I could also say that the Planeswalker Decks don't do that either. I'll take Kaldheim Commander Decks for example. What are the themes of the two decks? Elves and uh, Foretell? With the Foretell deck, the odds of drawing a Foretell card is low that you don't even get to get a feeling of that mechanic.
If Kaldheim were released in the Theme Deck era, the 4 decks would've been Elves, Foretell, Snow, and some other Tribal theme.
Since this is about the D&D Commander decks, the D&D set would have so many awesome themes that don't get a deck, because there is most likely going to be two choices, and we probably get, aside from basic lands, 20 out of 100 cards be related to that theme, and thus your chances to experience that theme is low.
It's pretty funny how the set that has the main Commander decks tied to it has a "5" theme. You know, in Ikoria, they have the five locales in the plane that is your wedge colors, and now we have your 5 colleges in Strixhaven.
I honestly don't judge you for wanting this, but at the same time it's not a very realistic expectation.
It would not make sense, from a marketing a point of view, to do that at all. I don't approve of every decision that Wizards makes in the pursuit of profit, but I still want them to stay in business. That said, they will certainly go back to revising characters from previous planes.
Because it's the year of commander! It only started just last May, with the release of Ikoria. Would you be less upset to know that it should now effectively be over?
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
Year of Commander, more like an eternity of Commander until we screw up the product line so much that nobody buys our product. If Ikoria was the start of "year of commander", then Strixhaven wouldn't have commander decks. Even the upcoming D&D set has commander decks and by that time, it has been past that year.
It is not that difficult to not slap the word Ikoria or Strixhaven into the annual commander deck release.
As for set associated precons must mostly having cards related to the set or is plane neutral, it had nothing to do with me being biased against commander. I mentioned that event decks should not be set associated because they contain a mixture of cards from all standard legal sets. There was one event deck from Innistrad block that had more cards from Scars of Mirrodin block.
I seriously don't get how you got 80 cards from the set of 5 decks when Zasz234 was asking for a deck, and a D&D deck, not Strixhaven. D&D commander decks will most likely be built like the Kaldheim and Zendikar Rising commander decks.
Explain to me why is it so important for the Commander decks to be tied to the Standard sets? Too bad we will never see something like Commander 2019 where we had a Morph Commander Deck and Flashback Commander deck. Each of the 4 having the main Commander being from totally different planes. Tell me. Why would it not make sense to have Commander not tied to a Standard set, like it used to be?
...You seem to be looking at the situation from almost exactly the opposite perspective from what I (strongly) suspect Wizards is doing.
Put simply, Wizards is selling set-themed commander decks to build synergy.
While I know that synergy is thrown around so often that the word has just about lost all meaning at this point, I want to make the argument that set-themed commander decks synergize with their sets in two fundamental ways.
1. Commander Deck First: If someone buys a commander deck, they will not find all of the set-themed cards that they may want. In fact, they will notably find that some of the cards from the corresponding set that they would want most (rares and mythics) are missing. This thematic gap in the decklists is put there very much by design. If you get your Ranar deck to foretell some cards, you may want doomskar or starnheim unleashed, which will lead someone who bought a commander deck to purchase booster packs and/or singles as well.
2. Booster Packs First: Let's say that you cracked a Strixhaven booster pack and pull out Tyvar Kell. You may reasonably want to shove Tyver into a G/B elf deck for commander... but there's not a ton of good golgari elves to act as your commander... and getting a selection of older cards (Commander is an eternal format, after all) needed to build your 100-card singleton deck may require an expenditure of effort and money that may not be worthwhile to newer players. If you just buy that Elven Empire commander deck, however, you will have a nice home for that Tyvar Kell or Harald Unites the Elves you just cracked and will have a decent commander for that strategy. In this way, buying the booster packs can encourage players to buy into commander decks.
Conclusion: As I said, it's all about synergy. Pulling Kaldheim singles that synergize with the deck encourages buying the deck and buying the deck encourages players to get the new singles that match into that deck. If you want to know why Wizards is tying the Commander decks into standard-legal sets, it's because doing so allows the two products to increase each others' sales. If they printed a Morph Commander deck and don't have any sets with morph coming out at that time, they are passing up on a free opportunity to also be boosting set sales. If you don't like that reason or feel that is unethical, you are free to feel that way. If you want to know why this is happening, though, that's your reason. That's also why they claim to tie the flavor commander decks to the set (even though there are so many cards from other sets/settings) instead of simply releasing decks with purely mechanical ties to the set. Having them both branded with the same set name helps players make the connection that singles from one product might be slotted into the other product, increasing sales of both. No vorthos concerns. Sales concerns.
Other Notes:
1. In one video of Good Morning Magic, I do believe that Gavin reported that the "old fashioned" version of "just choose a mechanical theme" decks may emerge again in the future from time to time.
2. I realize that the Commander Legends Commander Decks were terrible at synergizing with the corresponding set (it's not like we have a lack of boros equipment commanders to make Wyleth necessary). From what I have heard, they were the first of the "mini" commander decks actually designed. The fact that they got it right with their "next" attempts (making a landfall commander in the colors of landfall and a proper rogue tribal commander) shows that the aim for synergy was established quite early.
3. I recognize that the Lorehold deck in particular does not seem to align with its corresponding college in the main set (It's the only commander deck that doesn't want it's founding dragon shoved in). Mark Rosewater recently speculated on blogatog that the change occured as there weren't enough boros cards to explore the new design space that lorehold was going for and they had to go for an artifact theme instead.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice